Bad Air Days: The Effect of Air Stagnation during Pregnancy on Birth Outcomes and Infant Mortality in the U.S. and Mexico

项目概要/摘要 尽管气候和极端天气事件之间的关系有文献记载，但迄今为止， 关于人类健康可能受到损害的方式和程度的科学知识存在重大空白 直接和间接地，国内和国际上与气候有关的天气事件。 我们建议将空气停滞确定为健康的独特和关键的环境决定因素， 评估其对新生儿的影响。空气停滞，特点是风小，没有降水，可以导致 空气污染事件，并预计将加强和延长随着气候变化的变化， 降水模式然而，人们对其对人类健康的影响知之甚少。我们专注于出生 新生儿和婴儿死亡率之间的关系，因为有证据表明， 环境危害和胎儿健康和婴儿死亡率仍然不足以推断因果关系， 曝光，影响的大小，以及曝光的关键时间。 该分析利用了每日空气停滞事件的独特和外源性变化， 全面的出生率和死亡率数据集与地理编码的住宅位置从密歇根州，宾夕法尼亚州， 和墨西哥收集了近十年。这些特征使我们能够精确地估计 暴露于空气停滞的经验，个别母亲在其怀孕期间的三个月。 我们的初步证据，基于密歇根州每月发生的空气停滞事件，表明 妊娠期和分娩期空气停滞事件之间的统计学和经济学显著关联 成果。鉴于这些发现，我们假设空气停滞是一个关键的环境决定因素， 我们将评估其对新生儿的影响。我们还假设存在重要的异质性 在不同的气候区域和人口特征的空气停滞的影响。 这些假设将通过以下具体目标来解决：（1）构建空气停滞事件 每日一级的数据，大大改进了对污染暴露措施的估计， 覆盖范围包括宾夕法尼亚州和墨西哥;（2）确定宫内暴露于空气停滞的影响 对新生儿健康和婴儿死亡率的出生结局的影响;（3）确定 美国和墨西哥之间的空气停滞，以及各国内部的社会经济地位。 预期结果将有助于决策者设计成功的缓解和适应政策， 例如建立警报系统，查明和保护敏感人群。此外还将 通过提供有关气候变化相关极端天气事件对健康影响的信息， 使用实时健康、天气、地理空间和暴露数据的严格科学证据。

Project Summary/Abstract Despite the documented relationship between climate and extreme weather events, to date, there remain important gaps in scientific knowledge regarding how and the extent to which human health may be damaged by climate-related weather events, both directly and indirectly, domestically and internationally. We propose to identify air stagnation as a unique and critical environmental determinant of health and to assess its effects on newborns. Air stagnation, characterized by low wind and absence of precipitation, can lead to air pollution episodes and is expected to intensify and lengthen as a changing climate shifts global wind and precipitation patterns. However, little is known about its implications for human health. We focus on birth outcomes of newborns and infant mortality because evidence of the relationship between in-utero exposures to environmental hazards and fetal health and infant mortality remains insufficient to infer causality, the modes of exposure, sizes of the effects, and critical timings of the exposures. The analysis takes advantage of the unique and exogenous variation in daily air stagnation events and the comprehensive natality and mortality datasets with geocoded residential locations from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Mexico collected for nearly a decade. These features allow us to precisely estimate the intensity of exposures to air stagnation experienced by individual mothers over the terms of their pregnancies by trimester. Our preliminary evidence, based on the monthly occurrence of air stagnation events in Michigan, indicates statistically and economically significant associations between air stagnation events during gestation and birth outcomes. Given these findings, we hypothesize that air stagnation is a critical environmental determinant of health, and we will assess its effects on newborns. We also hypothesize that there are important heterogeneities in the effects of air stagnation across different climate regions and demographic characteristics. These hypotheses will be addressed by the following Specific Aims: (1) Construct air stagnation events data at the daily level, which substantially refines the estimation of pollution exposure measures and expands the coverage to include Pennsylvania and Mexico; (2) Determine the effects of in-utero exposure to air stagnation on birth outcomes of newborns’ health and infant mortality; and (3) Determine the heterogeneity in the effects of air stagnation between the U.S. and Mexico, and within the countries by socioeconomic status. The anticipated outcomes will help policy makers design successful mitigation and adaptation policies, such as development of an alert warning system and identify and protect sensitive populations. In addition, it will advance knowledge regarding health effects of climate change-related extreme weather events by providing rigorous scientific evidence using real-time health, weather, geospatial, and exposure data.